Left: Viking Longship, Draken will be
9 departing for Vinland in may. Below: get some
excercise, join Justin Coleman on his 2017
join a tall ship with a difference, the
Tres Hombres has no engine and is
completely reliant on her sails for propulsion. They are actively looking for
paid trainees and sailors to join them
- the rates are very reasonable and you
can sign on for all or part of the voyage. A full return voyage will cost you
about 10,000 euros but takes 6 months.
Shorter legs are cheaper.
If you don’t fancy a transatlantic crossing then Fairtransport run the 50
tonne Isle of Wight Lugger on trading
runs between Portugal and the Baltic,
stopping off in Spain, France, England, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden.
Again, you can sign on for legs as short
as 1 day up to the whole voyage.
Fairtransport also act as agents for the
new Isle of Wight Lugger, Greyhound
which trades between Spain, France
and England. Again, legs vary in cost.
These are superb opportunities for anyone with a serious interest in sailing
ships and who would like to improve
their general seamanship skills and
those specifically related to a tall ship.
When the Bill Juniors reach an appropriate age they will be signed on
the Tres Hombres even if I have to pay
the skipper to kidnap them! (See Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson).
It’s just a pity the Royal Navy no longer
takes boys at 8 years!
VIKINGS NO LONGER WANTED!
In May 2016, after many years work
the colossal Draken Harald Hårfagre,
an ocean going Viking L ongship will
set sail for the New World with a crew
of volunteers. Having invited applications, the organisers have just announced that the list for applications
is now closed at 4000. They will have
a lot of work to do to cut that down
to the crew, they haven’t indicated on
their website how many but with that
level of response there will be a few disappointed applicants. Draken Harald
Hårfagre is 35 meters long, 8 meters
wide and the mast reaches 24 meters.
She is sailed with a 260 square meters
large sail and rowed with 25 pairs of
oars. During the trail sailing the summer of 2014 she reached a top speed
of 14 knots. When sailing expedition
America she will be crewed by 32
skilled sailors.
The Draken will be following the route
roughly taken by Leif Erikson, so Iceland, Greenland, Canada and into the
Great Lakes. The Draken is an open
ship so it will be pretty tough, it’s worth
pointing out that the organisers don’t
claim that this is an accurate replica of
the sort of boats the Norsemen used
for such voyages, rather it is inspired by
the Norse warships of the time.
Their 2014 voyage round the North
Sea was marred by losing their mast,
hopefully the transatlantic voyage will
be without such drama. We will be following their voyage closely as you can
at their website: http://www.drakenexpeditionamerica.com/
ROBBINS TIMBER SPONSORS
BBM’s First OZ GOOSE
We are delighted to report that Robbins Timber, manufacturers and suppliers of leading marine ply in the UK
have offered to sponsor the build of
our UK OzGooseRV. If you read last
month’s issue you will be aware that we
have launched a project to prove that a
capable, safe and easy to build dinghy
can be completed for the same cost
as the Mirror Dinghy kit cost in 1962,
when it was launched.
We are hugely grateful to Andy, Sarah
and the team at Robbins for making
this project a reality and we’ll be calling
on their expertise when required. Rob-
bins are committed to supporting new
boat building in the UK and in growing the self build sector. Don’ t miss our
update on the project in this month’s
issue.
**STOP PRESS** - we’ve just heard
from Michael Storer that Really Simple Sails in the Philippines are generously sponsoring the sail for the OzGoose Project Build thank you to Mik
and the team at RSS
BBM PARTNERS WITH KIELDER WATER SAILING CLUB
Barnacle Bill is delighted to announce
that we will be collaborating with Julie
Gibbon and Bill Haylock of Kielder
Water Sailing Club in testing the OzGoose project and several other raids
and projects. Julie runs Cruising at the
club and they have frequent picnics
and camping trips on Western Europe’s largest man made lake. They also
do annual trips to parts of Scotland.
Bill is the Dinghy Cruising Association representative for the North East
of England and the Borders, he is passionate about encouraging small boat
recreation and dinghy cruising. We are
really looking forward to working with
both Julie and Bill to encourage people
to get on the water. Bill is about to start
building a Tom Dunderdale designed
Apple, he’s currently working out what
sail plan and options to go with. Bill
was previously a keen adventure sailor
of a Drascombe Lugger, we’ll be featuring an article by him in nest month’s
issue, March.
You can find out more about Kielder
Water Sailing Club here: http://www.
kielderwatersc.org/
Based right on the border with Scotland, the club attracts members from
both sides of the border and is a truly
magnificent venue.